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The room
was mostly silent, with only occasional murmuring, and it carried with it a
distinct sense of déjà vu. You know this sound. It was the kind of room when even the people who aren't sure why they are being quiet tend to talk in a low tone, because that's what everyone else is doing.

One person
was doing most of the talking in the Carolina players' lounge as the Tar Heel
players met the media following Thursday's 68-59 home loss to Miami. Reggie
Bullock was sitting at a table, trying to eat a slice of pizza, when the media
walked in. A crowd gathered around him, asking him to explain what had just
happened. This is his role now: he is the spokesman.

So he would
answer the questions, and after a few minutes, that crowd of media would leave.
Bullock's fingers would reach for his pizza box, and then another group of
seven or eight reporters would walk up, and they would ask him the same
questions, because he is the spokesman.

Bullock was
polite, because that's the way his grandmother taught him back in Kinston.

"During
practice we do everything great," he said. "When we get in the game, for
certain spans of the game, they hit shots and we weren't guarding the ball or
getting out to three-point shooters. That span right there was stuff we work on
in practice. We can't have lapses like that."

The span
he's talking about changed a 52-51 Carolina lead with 9:08 remaining to a 64-55
Miami lead with 3:05 left.

It was
unfamiliar territory for most of the Tar Heels. Dexter Strickland was
despondent after struggling mightily (26 minutes, 0-1 FG, 0 A, 0 R, 0 P). James
Michael McAdoo looked stunned. As Roy Williams said, "I've got some really good
kids that are hurting right now and they are also feeling a little bit of
stress."

That stress
was most obvious on the face of Bullock. It was reminiscent of the scene in the
Carolina locker room after the Tar Heels dropped a 72-68 decision at Virginia
in January of 2006. That was the second straight loss for that club, on the way
to three losses in four games.

If you've
heard many of Williams's recent press conferences, you've heard several
mentions of David Noel, the player he has repeatedly described as "the best
leader I've been around." Now, nearly seven years later-wow, seven years
later-it sounds like it must have been a lot of fun. Noel got to lead a team
with Tyler Hansbrough and Bobby Frasor and Danny Green and Marcus Ginyard, and
what we remember most now about that squad is that they went into Cameron
Indoor Stadium and ruined J.J. Redick's senior night.

What we
forget, though, is how hard it was to get there. After that loss to Virginia,
Noel looked physically and mentally exhausted. It was almost painful to stand
close to him.

That's
where Bullock is right now. He's not as outwardly expressive as Noel, not when
things are going well and certainly not when they are going poorly. So he's not
the type to shed a tear in a postgame interview, because on Bright Street in
Kinston you keep that stuff inside, lest someone use it against you later.

But this
one, it was obvious, stung. It hurt worse than the Virginia game, when the Tar
Heels simply didn't play with the often-discussed sense of urgency. That
urgency was present in this one. Brice Johnson dove out of bounds to save a
loose ball. James Michael McAdoo and Marcus Paige drew important charging
calls. P.J. Hairston got a big two-handed blocked shot and dove on the floor in
the first half to save a loose ball.

The effort
was there. It's just that the execution sometimes wasn't, and over the closing
minutes, Miami was just better. That seemed to make the outcome that much tougher
to accept for the Tar Heels. At Virginia on Sunday, it was more easily
reconciled: they would just come back, play harder, play tougher, and get
better results. It felt easier, somehow.

Bullock
went from that loss and did what he thought he was supposed to do in this
new--for him--role as team sage. He called a players-only meeting. The air was
cleared.

Off the
court progress? Check.

Then he
went out on the court and tried to be the player that it feels like he needs to
be for this team to be successful. At Virginia, when he was hot as a
firecracker, he had just nine shots. Against Miami, when he was less warm, he
had 16 field goal attempts, and even though they weren't regularly finding the target, it never felt like he was forcing them, because
Carolina needs Bullock to take those shots.

It is great
to be that player, especially when the shots are falling. But when they're
not--as Noel showed at Virginia in 2006 and as Bullock showed Thursday night--it
can be weighty. He had done what he was supposed to do. He did, he thought, the
right thing. The outcome, plainly, didn't make sense. This time, it was not the urgency. It was not the effort. It was not the heart. It was...something else, and the player who felt most responsible for identifying the problem was confused.

"We prepare
for games every day," Bullock said. "To keep coming out with L's, it hurts." He let out a sigh that sounded more like a 40-year-old man than a 21-year-old
college student. One of the most commonly asked questions about this year's team is, "Who is the leader?"

That makes it sound easy. Someone should just "step up." They should just "take control of the team." It sounds really simple when we talk about it on the radio or in print or at the office. We would do it, for sure, if we were in that room. We know we would.

That picture of Bullock and the depth of his sigh, bearing the weight of his teammates and coaches and friends and you and me, shows exactly why it's not that simple--because it's really, really hard to be the leader.

"Somehow,
some way, we've got to change it," he said. "We've got to get W's."